On Saturday Donald Trump will complete 100 days in the White House. In his first few months in office he has rattled Washington and been chastened by its institutions. He’s startled world leaders with his unpredictability and tough talk, but won their praise for a surprise strike on Syria. He’s endured the steady drip of investigations and a seemingly endless churn of public personnel drama.
“It’s a different kind of a presidency,” Mr Trump said during an interview with the Associated Press. He also boasted that his “ratings” were higher than broadcasts of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. During the interview he railed against the “fake media”, former rival Hillary Clinton and the election during which he lost the popular vote.
When asked if he thought he had changed how people vote, Mr Trump pointed to his “very high ratings”, claiming they increased by two or three times when he appeared on the Sunday morning shows.
He also claimed that he would “still” beat Ms Clinton in the popular vote despite losing it by more than 2.8 million votes to the Democratic candidate. This comes after new approval ratings showed Mr Trump has the lowest approval ratings since 1945. Mr Trump's rating averages in the low 40 per cent range
No post-war president has polled as low as Mr Trump in the first three months of office. Despite this, Mr Trump tweeted: “New polls out today are very good considering that much of the media is fake and almost always negative. Would still beat Hillary in popular vote. ABC News/Washington Post Poll (wrong big on election) said almost all stand by their vote on me & 53% said strong leader.”
Mr Trump’s early presidency has been dogged by FBI and congressional investigations into whether his campaign coordinated with Russians to tilt the race in his favor. It’s a persistent distraction that Mr Trump would not discuss on the record.
He acknowledged that being commander in chief brings with it a “human responsibility” that he didn’t much bother with in business.” “Here, everything, pretty much everything you do in government involves heart, whereas in business most things don’t involve heart,” Mr Trump said. As for accomplishments, he cited “tremendous success” on an undefined strategy for defeating the Islamic State group.
